1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display device and an electronic apparatus.
2. Related Art
As an example of a mode of a liquid crystal device, a mode (hereinafter, referred to as a “transverse electric field mode”) of controlling alignment of liquid crystal molecules by applying a substrate-in-plane electric field to a liquid crystal layer is known. An in-plane switching (IPS) mode and a fringe-field switching (FFS) mode that depend upon the shapes of the electrodes for generating an electric field are also known. For example, a liquid crystal display device with a transverse electric field mode (FFS mode) in which pectinated electrodes are provided in upper and lower layers with a dielectric layer disposed therebetween is disclosed in JP-A-11-202356.
Transflective liquid crystal display devices have been used as display units of mobile electronic apparatuses such as mobile phones or personal digital assistants, and liquid crystal display devices with a twisted nematic (TN) mode or a vertical aligned nematic (VAN) mode are often used. Such known transflective liquid crystal display devices employ a structure (so-called multi-gap structure) in which the thickness of a liquid crystal layer is different in a reflective display area and a transmissive display area of a dot area so as to obtain both excellent reflective display and transmissive display.
Accordingly, the inventors studied the application of a transverse electric field mode which is advantageous in terms of viewing angle or image quality to transflective liquid crystal display devices. As a result, it was found out that liquid crystal display devices with a transverse electric field mode cannot provide both excellent reflective display and transmissive display, not only when a reflective layer is formed on a dot but also when a multi-gap structure is used.